[ravenstine]

It sounds like it's the people around you doing sous vide wrong and you're actually doing it correctly(by virtue of searing the steak). I've never heard anyone suggest eating a sous vide steak without searing it or using a torch to brown it, render the fat, etc. A sous vide steak should still taste at least halfway decent without searing because of the amount of salt and seasoning used in the process.

Your viewpoint is totally valid, though I still encourage people to give it a try for themselves. They don't even need a circulator the first time they do it, although I do think they're worth the money. A lot of restaurants actually sous vide their steaks before searing them, so if someone's sous vide steak is coming out terrible then I suspect something really went wrong in the process. Either not enough salt and seasoning was used(sous vide calls for a lot of salt), or they didn't properly sear the steak.

[kls]

In culinary school we where taught that a steak does not touch the flame until it is room temperature. The reason for this is it shocks the steak and causes it to draw up, it takes longer to draw out the moisture in the surface and it allows some of the organic decay of the fat. Most restaurants use sous vide to short circuit this process as they can hold them in immersion below rare temp and then take them directly to the grill. Nothing wrong with this, it accomplishes the same end result and that is you don't seize the meat and cause it to draw up and you pull some of the moisture out of the surface while breaking down some of the fat.

I think most people mess up on doing it all in a pan due to the fact that they go from at least fridge cold to the pan. Put one on the counter, salt it, cover it and let it sit for an hour or two and most people will be surprised at how well of a steak they can produce in a pan. If one really wants a good crust, leave it salted and uncovered in the fridge to dry for 3 day. It takes a lot of energy to evaporate moisture and you need the moisture out of the surface to brown a steak rapidly.

That being said I use my sous vide machine to bring them to temp as it also does a better job of distributing the salt and garlic I like to use.

[ravenstine]

Thanks for the insight! I didn't think that letting a steak get to room temperature would make that big of a difference!